


take time to catch your breath and choose your moment

by tigriswolf



Series: comment_fic drabbles [298]
Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Gen, Secret Identity, Time Travel Fix-It
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-04-11
Updated: 2016-04-11
Packaged: 2018-06-01 17:45:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6529846
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tigriswolf/pseuds/tigriswolf
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She coughs herself awake, wet and with aching ribs. Xander's crouched next to her, looking younger than she can remember, and Angel is lurking behind him. </p><p>It worked, then.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Title: take time to catch your breath and choose your moment  
> Disclaimer: not my characters; title from Dido  
> Warnings: AU during season 1; references to violence and canon character death  
> Pairings: none  
> Rating: PG  
> Wordcount: 800  
> Point of view: third  
> Prompt: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers, after the Battle of Sunnydale she was given the doubble-edged gift of sending her mind back to any point in her past, with all her memories and current powers intact.

She coughs herself awake, wet and with aching ribs. Xander's crouched next to her, looking younger than she can remember, and Angel is lurking behind him. 

It worked, then. She slowly sits up, while Xander babbles and Angel stares at her. She wonders if she smells different, if her heartbeat has changed. 

She had been so scared, so angry, when this happened the first time. She died and came back, and it had been terrible. 

Worse things have happened now. Sunnydale is rubble, Mom is dead, Dawnie is lost in the future and doesn't exist at the same time, and so many mistakes... 

"Buffy?" Xander says. "Are... are you okay?"

The Master is waiting. Somewhere, Kendra just got Called. 

There's so much she doesn't remember, but she's almost certain she cannot make anything worse than what actually happened, so she takes a deep breath and then breathes out before smiling at Xander. "We have to get to the Master," she says, and she thinks she almost sounds like that girl she hasn't been since the first time she died.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy Summers+Any, Psychological Warfare (Burn Notice)

Buffy comes back from LA just a little... off. She's quieter. She sometimes hangs with Xander and Willow like normal, and sometimes she pushes them away. She spends hours with Giles in the library, studying lore she'd always complained about before. She makes time to eat dinner with her mom every night. 

At some point, without telling anyone until Giles hears it from a contact, she destroys the Master's bones. She stakes the Anointed One and all of his followers. She's stronger and faster, a far better fighter than can possibly be explained by keeping up with her training while with her dad. 

But none of them mention it to her. Because she's also happier. She laughs at the silliest things, and she talks to people in the halls, and even when they're scrambling to stop Frankenstein wannabes or ancient mummies, it's like Buffy is just so happy to be alive, and none of them can blame her for that. 

After the ill-fated Parent-Teacher Night, Buffy drags Giles to her house and they tell her mother everything. It doesn't go as terribly as it could have, and while her mother doesn't really understand, she knows she can't stop it. 

Xander is happy when Buffy doesn't resume her relationship with Angel (and so is Giles), and while Spike takes over the Master's position, Giles tries to convince Buffy to stake him. Angel argues for and against it, depending on the day. 

Not even Willow gets why Buffy will stake any of Spike's minions she finds, but won't go after him or Drusilla. 

So little about Buffy makes sense these days; she just stares at Snyder when he's his usual horrible self with a tiny smile, and she fights her way through so many demons and vampires while leaving other demons alone (sometimes she explains that they're not the kind that hurt people, but what other kind of demon is there?), and she has a notebook she fills with some kind of shorthand no one else knows, and any time she leaves her mom or Willow or Xander or Giles, she'll say, "I love you." 

("You don't belong here," Drusilla tells her, when Drusilla follows her on patrol one night. "I tried tellin' Spike we shouldn't come here." 

"He just wants to get you well again," Buffy says. "He loves you." 

"Like he'll one day love you?" Drusilla asks. She knows without trying that her usual tricks won't work on _this_ Slayer. 

"Probably not now," Buffy says. "I've changed too much." 

They stare at each other, and Drusilla reads so much in her eyes. "Will you still know what to do, with so much changed?" she muses, tilting her head to better hear the stars. 

Buffy shrugs, laughing slightly. "I should be able to figure it out." 

So much went wrong, for both the people she loves and the world—and she hears the First Slayer in her dreams, and this is her chance to change it all. 

"If you don't ignore Spike in favor of Angel," Buffy says as she turns to continue her patrol, "he probably won't become fixated on me." 

Drusilla watches her go, swaying in the moonlight, until Spike comes for her. "What are you doin' out here, pet?" he asks softly, gentle as he only ever is for her. 

She wonders how he became the wretched creature in the Slayer's mind, who found the courage somehow to sacrifice himself. Did he love the Slayer more than he loved her? 

It matters not, she decides, nibbling at Spike's neck as he guides her back to their home. Some of what came to pass will not now, and some will. She gleaned much, and she'll have to follow the threads.)


End file.
